


Zoya

by eiluned



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Babyfic, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Master Assassins make surprisingly good parents, Parenthood, Parents & Children, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, oh gosh it's just fluff, so many baby feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:05:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiluned/pseuds/eiluned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two people who aren't particularly suited to being parents discover that they're more adaptable than they believed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zoya

**Author's Note:**

> For SidheRa, a belated birthday fic. All the baby feels. Huge thanks to EuphoricSound for the suggestions and for squeeing at me as I wrote this, and to Amanda for suggesting the title and also squeeing at me. :D
> 
> For cottoncandy_bingo at DW, prompt: parenthood.

1\. 

When the baby was born, Natasha didn't know what to feel.

The entire pregnancy had been an exercise in ambivalence. She didn't particularly want a child and thought she'd be a terrible mother, but at the same time, she was taken with the idea that she and Clint had made a child together. She had looked down at her belly, still flat then, and was amazed by the thought that his child, _their_ child, was growing inside of her. How could a body like hers, sculpted into a form that was best fit to kill, be fit to nourish a tiny human being?

When the baby was born, Natasha felt: 1. relieved that the pregnancy was over, 2. relieved that the baby was healthy, and 3. scared to fucking death.

She was a squalling little thing, wrinkled face scrunched up with the force of her unhappiness at being born and then manhandled with such indignity, and it made Natasha laugh. And then the doctor placed the baby on Natasha's stomach, skin to skin, and something happened.

When the baby was born, Natasha fell in love for the second time in her life.

 

2\. 

Still in the hospital bed, Natasha lay with the baby in her arms. She was tired, and her daughter was tired, and she still couldn't quite believe that this tiny creature curled around her breast was hers.

Clint slipped into the bed beside her, wrapping his arm around Natasha's shoulders and touching their daughter with his other hand, stroking her soft cheek and smiling down at her.

"I can't believe we made her," he whispered. "She's perfect."

His voice was choked, emotional; he sounded the way she felt but couldn't articulate. She was terrified. She was fascinated in a strangely detached sort of way. She was... enchanted by this baby, by her baby. Their baby.

"What should we call her?" Clint asked, pressing a kiss against her temple. "Did you ever decide which name you liked best?"

She turned her head, kissed him back, tried to tell him without words how much she loved him, how amazed she was that she was finally holding their baby.

"Zoya," she murmured, looking down at the little girl falling asleep in her arms.

She wasn't even sure where the name had come from. It wasn't on the list that they had been steadily building over the last few months. It felt like something from her past, the life that she was torn from when she was just a child, a hazy recollection.

"Zoya," Clint repeated, rubbing his thumb over the baby's hand. "I like it. It fits her. What does it mean?"

Natasha smoothed her fingers over Zoya's forehead and leaned into Clint's embrace.

"Life."

 

3.

"I'm having baby feelings."

Natasha looked up from her cup of coffee to see Pepper gazing longingly at Zoya, who was gurgling happily in her high chair. "Really?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah," Pepper replied, making a thoughtful face. "She's just so... cute."

"I'll let you babysit her when she has a cold," Natasha said with a smirk. "That will cure your baby fever very, very quickly."

Pepper leaned over and handed Zoya another cheerio, smiling when the baby made a noise of glee and grabbed the cereal. "I just feel like I'm running out of time," Pepper sighed. "I'm turning forty this year, and... it's like time's ticking away from me. I'm going to run out of chances."

Sipping her coffee, Natasha debated how much she wanted to open up to Pepper. She was her friend, one of her only female friends, but that didn't mean Natasha wasn't her usual, reticent self. Clint was the only person she ever really opened up to because she knew she could trust him with her secrets.

But she liked Pepper, and in a part of herself that felt almost foreign, she wanted to open up, at least a little.

"When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't believe it at first," Natasha said, and Pepper turned to look at her, seeming to understand the seriousness of what Natasha was doing. "I was led to believe that I was sterile, and it took a sonogram for me to actually believe that it had happened. And... I didn't really want to have a child. I mean, I couldn't imagine myself as a mother at all. It had never crossed my mind."

"But you decided to have the baby," Pepper said softly, smiling a little when Zoya grabbed her finger.

Natasha swirled the coffee around in her cup. "I did," she said, looking up to grin at her daughter. "Partly because I was afraid it was my only chance. She could be a fluke. What if I wanted children later and couldn't have any?"

She picked up the cheerio from where Zoya had dropped it in her clumsy attempts to cram it in her mouth. She babbled at Natasha for a second, giving her a bright, toothless smile, and Natasha smiled back, putting the cereal in her mouth. "But that wasn't the only reason I decided to have her," she said, looking back at Pepper. "Clint and I talked about it for days and days, and... we wanted to have a family together, as unexpected as it was.

"I think if you want to have a baby, make sure that you really _want_ it," she said. "I wouldn't do it just because of what ifs."

Pepper looked at her for a long moment, biting her bottom lip. "Do... do you regret it?" she asked quietly.

Natasha smiled and shook her head. "Not at all."

 

4.

Zoya learned to walk when she was a year old, and by the time she hit two, she had become the terror of Stark Tower.

Whenever Tony saw her coming, a little bundle of chubby cheeks, flaming red hair, and an unholy amount of energy, he would immediately shout for JARVIS to find Clint or Natasha. Zoya would giggle and toddle around and grab absolutely anything within reach.

Tony learned the hard way not to leave his repulsor prototypes within three feet of the floor. The window learned that lesson, too, though there was nothing it could do about it.

"Gotcha!" Clint exclaimed, catching her behind the sofa on Thor's floor. "How did you even get here, kid? You're too short to push the elevator buttons."

"I confess, she followed me," Thor said from the kitchen. "She is far too adorable for me to resist her charms."

She let out a peal of laughter when Clint swooped her up into the air, making airplane noises. "Did you come in here to bother your old Uncle Thor?" he asked, giving her a hug.

"Dada," she said, holding his face in her hands. "Pshew."

Thor laughed as he came into the living room, a booming sound that made Zoya grin delightedly. "Thow!" she cried. "Dada pshew."

"I am still attempting to decipher her speech, Friend Clint," Thor said, reaching over to tickle Zoya under her chin.

"'Pshew' is her arrow sound," Clint explained. "She wants to watch me shoot. She's gonna grow up to be an archer, mark my words."

Thor smiled when Zoya giggled and grasped at his fingers. "She will be a mighty warrior, much like her parents," he said with all the pomp of a proclamation.

Clint figured that meant he and Nat had to be doing something right with this parenting thing.

 

5.

One time, Natasha found Clint letting Zoya hold his arrows as he fletched them.

Another time, she found him sitting in the pilot seat of a parked Quinjet with Zoya in his lap; he was explaining the instrumentation to their three year old daughter.

She also found him sitting cross-legged at Zoya's little craft table, very carefully coloring a dragon in a coloring book about knights with Zoya directing over his shoulder.

And then there was the time she found him having a tea party with Zoya and the rest of the Avengers; all of the grown men were squished onto tiny chairs that didn't look like they should hold that much weight. Zoya was serving them cookies that Natasha had baked with her that morning.

But her favorite thing was finding Clint asleep flat on his back in the middle of the living room rug, the menu of a Pixar movie looping forlornly on the TV, and Zoya was asleep on top of her daddy, drooling onto his t-shirt. Her curly red hair was splayed across his shoulder, and his big hand was resting on her back. And he had a pink bow clipped into the front of his spiky hair.

She loved them both more than she knew how to express.

 

6.

"Hey, there are my favorite girls in the world."

Natasha tossed a grin over her shoulder as she braided Zoya's hair, trying to keep the plait straight as Zoya twisted around to wave excitedly at Clint.

"Hold still, little monkey," Natasha teased, twisting an elastic around the bottom of the braid.

"'m not a monkey, Mommy," Zoya said very seriously.

"Then what are you today?"

"I'm a bird, like Daddy."

Clint grinned down at her, giving her a hug when she threw her arms around his hips. "I saw Uncle Phil in the living room," he said. "Is he walking you to pre-school today?"

"Yes! He's gonna stay to show'n tell his Cap'n America cards."

"That's nice of him," Clint said, picking her up to plant a kiss on her cheek. "Be sure to tell him thank you! And you'd better hurry, little bird, or you're going to be late. I'll see you after school, baby."

"Bye Daddy! Bye Mommy!" she called as she ran out of the bathroom. "I love youuuuu!"

"You look tired," Natasha said, pulling Clint into her arms. "Rough mission?"

"The usual," he replied, burying his face in her hair. "I hate being gone for that long. But it's the last one except for the Avengers stuff. Fury's ready to put Bishop in charge of missions, so I'm home free. I just want to... relax."

Giving him a kiss, she wiggled out of his arms, snagging something off of the counter. "Then maybe I shouldn't show you this," she said with a sly grin, leaning against the sink and crossing her arms.

His brow furrowed as he tried to see what was tucked into her hand. "What is that?" he said, leaning closer. "Wait... is that...?"

She held up the plastic stick so he could see the two pink lines. "I guess Zoya wasn't a fluke," she said, pressing her lips together nervously.

Taking the test, he stared at it for a long moment before dropping it on the floor, scooping her up instead. When he finally broke their kiss so they could breathe, she rested her forehead against his, reaching up to brush away a tear that had slipped past his guard. "You okay?" she whispered.

"Yeah," he answered with a little laugh. "Are you?"

Natasha closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She didn't know what she was feeling; she was anxious and excited and happy and afraid and a million other things that she couldn't put a name to, and it felt like more emotion than her heart could hold.

Opening her eyes, she smiled at him. "Yes."


End file.
